4 Weeks to a More Organized Home: Assignment #7 Update

We had a good day today. It was full and the children seemed to have an extra dose of energy, but we survived — and God gave me grace to not lose my patience, even though I was really tempted to a few times! 🙂

Today’s 7+ things to get rid of: odds and ends I found around the house while cleaning the baseboards. I wondered if I was going to be able to keep finding 7 things to get rid of every day, but so far, it’s not been too much of a challenge, unfortunately! 🙁

How did you do on Assignment #7? I’d love to have you share your progress and success with us so we can be inspired. Either post a link to your blog post below or leave a comment with your update.

I thought you would have been running out of things to get rid of too by now being a minimalist! I think I am a minimalist too but have not had a formal diagnosis yet, and am having a really hard time finding things to get rid of =)

Yes good job with patience! I too lost it. I have been praying for help in that area! And the baseboards were not easy!!! But I did it for the first time since we bought our house 2.5+ years ago!!! I am ready for your assignment tomorrow!

We just moved into our home a month ago. I thoroughly cleaned the house before we moved in, including wiping down all the baseboards. Glad I did it then because my 6-month pregnant belly wouldn’t appreciate it now! 🙂 I’m sure the house could use it again, but I think it will wait until bending over isn’t quite as uncomfortable!

I have been finding it super easy finding stuff to get rid of, and I LOVE it! So far I have gone through all the clothing and dressers of myself and my 3 children. I sold some clothing to a local kids resale shop and made $70, and I have a very large bag full of items to donate to a local domestic violence shelter. I would like to encourage everyone to collect their 7 daily items (if they are in nice condition) in a box or bag and once the 4 weeks is over donate them to a local shelter. The women and children there often arrive with nothing but the clothes on their back, and the shelter can always use your furniture and household items too. 🙂

Really enjoyed this. Not dealing with the “littles” I managed to go through one entire box of paperwork and toss, shred or file. Major cooking, washing, reorganizing some long forgotten areas, bought a tomato plant and squeezed in a trip to Walgreen’s. Whew! Time to rest up for tomorrow.

I have to admit that it makes me VERY happy to hear from other moms who lose their patience now and again. I feel like I have so far to go on that especially since I will start staying at home with my kiddos in just over two weeks!

I also felt like it was going to be difficult to do 7 items a day, but I always manage to find something to get rid of. There have actually been several days where I have done much more than 7! I will have plenty at my garage sale in a few weeks!

I’ve never cleaned baseboards before in my life! I had to Google it – I didn;t know it was something people did. And I ended up having to use a Magic Eraser because nothing else would shift the scuff marks. I ran out of Magic Eraser after all the painted baseboards, so I just ignored the wood grain ones – I didn’t see any marks that would come off THOSE without the aid of a smelly latex paint remover. So I scrubbed off all the finger, crayon and unknown goo marks off the walls and banisters instead.

The baseboards are the only assignment I have not done during this “challenge”. We will be priming and painting all the baseboards and trim through out the house next month. Our baseboards have never been painted (they were wood stained years and years ago) and they take multiple coats of primer before you can no longer see the wood underneath. I painted the kitchen baseboards and trim last fall.

It took me a while to do all of mine. My son helped with his room. There is a a lot of baseboards in this house. I usually just clean them when I do the walls and vacuum them when I vacuum so doing all of them took longer than I thought. I am glad to have it done.

We spent the weekend out of town with family and then Monday I was recovering and unpacking. We didn’t do our entire schedule since we had a late start this morning, but we did make progress.

I caught up on one of the assignments, cleaning out under the beds and vacuuming. I enlisted my four and six years olds to help and I was amazed at how much they were perfectly able to do without my help! I was also amazed that we ended up collecting an additional Wal-Mart bag full of things to send to Goodwill, as well as three small sets of hand weights. Yay for continued decluttering!

I also made two loaves of Amish white bread, as well as sorted all of our laundry, getting us ready for a major laundry day tomorrow. Even though I am a little behind on the assignments, I’m making so much more progress then I ever would if I was just sitting around. I keep reminding myself, “Progress, not perfection, because perfection doesn’t exist.” 🙂

i could only do my kitchen and hallways downstairs bc it took forever (and 6 months pregnant….my back was pretty sore)! our baseboards are white, so there are thousands of scuff marks. unfortunately, they dont look too different since cleaning them. i might need to try the magic eraser next time. however, since i was in the kitchen, i decided to wash the cabinet fronts. even though i had a ton of paperwork all over the island when my hubby came home, he asked immediately, “did you clean?” i was glad the cleaning of the cabinets made such a difference bc the baseboards sure didnt!

with a sickie home yesterday(hubby, the biggest baby of all) I only accomplished the living room ones….I plan on dividing the rest among the 3 kids and take out the rest today(which since our house is tiny, not alot are exposed :))

I did manage 7 things…4 broken toys trashed, a Walmart bag of newspaper taken to a pet rescue center, 1 can of kitten formula taken to the same place,and 1 swimsuit sold,

I’m so glad I got this done…. it’s a great feeling.
Crystal, have you thought about making a printable list of all the areas we’ve tackled by the time the challenge is over? I’d love to have one for reference.

Yes! I would love a checklist, too. I haven’t been able to participate this year b/c I work (as a substitute teacher, so my schedule is unpredictable). But if I have a checklist, I might tackle this 4 week project once school is out. 🙂

I’d love a checklist too! Especially because I am not able to keep up, with all other things going on and work too. At least I could work on it little by little over the next few months. I am enjoying reading it though! 🙂

I was happy to get another project that’s on my regular cleaning list! I do this project bi-weekly already, so I spent some extra time in the garden! As we go through this series I am realizing I’m a bit of a neat freak b/c several of the tasks are item I complete weekly or bi-weekly.

We LOVE the Boyer’s book Crossroads to Character, too! Excellent stories and so easy to apply to everyday life. My youngest is 9…I read this book aloud to him when he was 7…..and even though the book is geared for kids a bit younger, he still choses this one to read on his own. There is an additional book for older kids, Character Trails, which is also wonderful (we’re reading through this one at bedtime each night). The Boyers also have some really encouraging books and CDs for moms (they have 14 kids)…we have nothing but rave reviews for their materials!

i vacuumed the with the hose where the baseboards and the wall meet.. does that count:)?? i have really enjoyed these posts.. i have not officially jumped on board but have been doing it at my pase and i love seeing the bags of junk pile up and then get passed on!:)

My one year old saw me on my hands and knees (he did not even notice that I was cleaning) and thought I was going to give him a “horsey ride.” So he followed me down the hall trying to climb on my back while saying “horsey.” I finally just started playing with him 🙂